Oireachtas Joint and Select Committees

Thursday, 8 September 2016

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Finance, Public Expenditure and Reform, and Taoiseach

Rising Cost of Motor Insurance: Discussion

11:00 am

Mr. Conor Faughnan:

That is absolutely correct. AA is sort of like an insurance broker, although according to the Central Bank that is not the correct technical term for us. We are an intermediary. We have three motor insurance underwriters on our panel and we do business with them. There is quite a bit of commercial tension there. My colleague, our commercial director, will negotiate with them. At the moment, there are three insurance underwriters on our panel. We tender for that periodically. Previously, we had more and we decided to go with three. It is a dynamic thing. We are in constant commercial conversation with them to selfishly try to get the best rates for our customer. That is just an ordinary thing that goes on. The Deputy had a specific question which goes close to the heart of the matter which is that some element of natural correction had to occur but how much is natural correction? In other words, how much of the price we are paying is justified by underwriting criteria as the real cost of accidents? How much is unfair or super profit? How much is shoring up reserves that have been weakened by ten years of poor quality trading? It is perhaps not accurate to term it as unfair but maybe one might describe it as paranoid or excessively prudent provisions being made because they have been stung in the past. This body is not the only one wrestling with those calculations. I cannot claim that we would know definitely but in the last two years, the overall motor insurance premiums were-----

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